NEWARK, Ohio — If Licking County’s recent success is any indication, the periodic gathering of
wrench-turners and scrap-metal dealers known as the impounding-lot auto auction could go the way of
the Plymouth.

Licking County completed its first online auction of unclaimed vehicles from its impounding lot
in July. Eight vehicles were placed on the website GovDeals.com, a publicly traded online-auction
service created in 1999 that allows only government agencies to sell items.

In the 15 days that bidding was open, the eight vehicles attracted 400 bids and ultimately sold
for a total of more than $9,500.

“We were barely getting that in a year’s worth of on-site auctions,” said Lt. Kevin Biller, who
oversees the impounding lot for the Licking County sheriff’s office. “At the on-site auctions,
which we’d hold three or four times a year, we were getting scrap prices, typically about $100 a
car.”

Biller had been asking the county commissioners if unclaimed vehicles could be sold online. For
a time, no one seemed to know the answer. Licking County has been using GovDeals.com for years to
sell items the county had purchased directly. The impounded vehicles were a different story.

Biller asked the Buckeye State Sheriffs Association to look into it. Executive Director Bob
Cornwell gave his membership the green light this spring.

Thus far, he said, others have expressed some interest, but only Licking County has taken the
step from on-site to online. “It makes sense,” Cornwell said. “You may have 100 people at an
auction but hundreds more online. It’s just easier when you don’t even have to leave your home to
bid.”

Cornwell said he and other county administrators around Ohio are keeping an eye on Licking
County’s pioneering efforts. “Once we have a couple of success stories, I think there will be
others to follow fast.”

Among the vehicles sold in Licking County’s first online auto auction were three that earned
almost $2,200 apiece: a 2003 Chevy Z71 4x4, which attracted 80 bids; a 2005 Chevy Impala, which
drew 90 bids; and a 2008 Yamaha YZFR1 motorcycle, with 68 bids.

Of the more than $9,500 earned in the first auction, $716 pays GovDeals.com’s fees. The rest
goes into the county’s general fund.

Biller said the sheriff’s office impounded a record 387 vehicles last year. “There’s plenty more
there to do to get caught up,” he said.

The vehicles all come with salvage titles, though Biller said, “We don’t even have keys for 90
percent of them.”

Today, Licking County is putting 14 more vehicles on GovDeals.com for auction.

“We don’t need a junkyard behind our property if we can avoid it,” said County Commissioner Tim
Bubb. “Now we can avoid it.”